Computer & Communication at MIT Manipal

It’s not a mixture of CSE and ECE. I know, it sounds like it, but its not. There’s hardly any overlap between CCE and ECE. If you wanna make CCE into a mixture, its more of a mix between CSE and IT, with some added networking thrown in. What CCE essentially tries to be is an industry oriented course (I’ll come to why I said ‘tried’ a little later). What this means is that most of the stuff that is largely theoretical and/or rarely used in the industry (by and far) is pretty much omitted. So we do not have stuff like compiler design, which albeit interesting, isn’t something you will very likely do in a job you take up later. Now I know, this has both its pros and cons. The pros being you don’t waste time on something you probably will never use. On the other hand, the con is that you miss out on some very basic fundamentals that even though you might never use ‘as is’ would help in in getting an overall picture. As far as stuff from IT is concerned, it takes a lot of industry oriented stuff from it while omitting stuff which isn’t used a lot to make room for networking subjects.

There is almost no discrimination amongst CSE, IT and CCE when it comes to placements. Now you might point out I said ‘almost’. This is because there are these occasional 1 or 2 companies that do exclude CCE but these are definitely not the companies that really matter – not the giants like MS, GS, Amazon or mass recruiters like TCS. As long as you clear the basic criteria (like a set GPA) which is common to all branches, everyone in these branches sit through common tests and interviews. Now, you might look at placement stats and say CSE overall got better placement stats. This is largely because the first branch to be filled up in a college is CS and IT and CCE only comes in way later. And while this rank is not at all an indication of how good he/she actually is in ‘computers’, a lot of them are. That’s the only reason CSE has better placements. If today everyone decided to go for CCE instead of CS, CCE will have better placement stats. Basically, if you are just as good, you get to have the same opportunity as CSE or IT guys.

As far as the faculty is concerned, we have for most parts the ‘younger’ faculty. This means most of the senior faculty teaches CSE. You could say this is a disadvantage but I personally feel having a younger faculty has added benefits as well. As with faculty in any college/school, its always a hit or a miss. All you can do is hope you get the best of the lot. I can definitely assure you there are some really amazing teachers who teach CCE.

How much networking is there? Well, its just on an average one or two courses per semester. Even if you aren’t a big fan of networking, its nothing too hard. Infact, some of the networking courses in themselves are pretty neat.

Now before I state the next point, let me present some harsh realities. People jump into computer streams like a heard of cattle with no idea what they are getting themselves into. I know people with amazing MUOET ranks who have taken CSE and say stuff like ‘I hate coding’. This actually takes away seats from people who are actually good at it and/or genuinely have an interest in it. But the even sadder fact is that pretty much in all engineering courses in India, you can score amazing grades by rote learning. And sadly, its true here as well. So what this ends up meaning is that there is a good number of CSE students who are way too good at rote learning although they actually know squat (not saying all ofc, some) and these people end up getting amazing GPAs. Now with our relative grading system, to beat these guys, just having a good knowledge base and understanding is not enough, you will have to resort to a lot of rote learning as sadly, that’s how exam papers in engineering colleges in India are made. This inturn means the academic burden on you increases if you wanna maintain a respectable GPA. And no matter what anyone tells you, GPA is important (definitely to some extent).

This is where being in CCE helps. CCE not only has a much more ‘chill’ course (which in no way reads bad) but also you get lesser number of really awesome ‘rote learners’ as compared to CSE, as these people usually end up with good ranks and with the CSE branch. So to get awesome grades in CCE, all you need to do is get your concepts in order, the grades will come since its all relative. I know this sounds pretty sad, but this is what really happens.

This in turn has a nice cascading effect. Having less academic pressure let’s you explore other stuff. Maybe you can play some music if you are a musician. Or simply hone up your coding skills. Almost nothing you learn in college can be applied ‘as is’ in an industry. You need to take the information you gain and try to understand how and where to apply it. CCE gives you plenty of time to do this without burdening you at all.

So, I’ll sum this up. Less academic burden, same placement opportunities, awesome course…I do not see why you wouldn’t wanna take CCE.

Now if someone wants to know anything in particular, use the comments section below.

P.S. And regarding why I said ‘tried’ early. While this course is an industry oriented course, you can’t do squat in the industry if all you know is what you learn in the course and nothing else. You need to spend time to develop additional skills. Maybe do some Ruby on Rails, I don’t know, whatever interests you. This course will give you enough free time to help you do that.